Middle school students organize yoga flash mob

A group of middle school-age yogis and meditation-practitioners from Odyssey Community School busted out their downward-facing dogs and tree poses in a student-organized flash mob downtown on Oct. 31 at the Vance Memorial. The sixth, seventh and eighth-graders designed the sequence themselves, chose a high-traffic location to show their stuff and concluded the yoga sequence with a few minutes of seated meditation.

The students’ teacher, Megan McCarter, says that this kind of project isn’t unusual at the Odyssey School, where student-driven projects and “centering” activities like yoga are big parts of the curriculum. “We do all different kinds of centering,” says McCarter. “Yoga is one of them. Sometimes we go on walks, sometimes we do art, listen to music and we do all different types of meditation. It’s just to expose them to all different kinds of ways to ground yourself and focus.”

The students have performed flash mobs with dances in the past. After reading an article about a meditation flash mob, the students were inspired to take their own yoga and meditation practices to the streets.

“It’s really cool to for an age group that is normally considered to be angsty, or [to] have a chip on their shoulder to want to spread serenity and show their practice,” says McCarter.